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pay for a quick
lunch."
"I think you'd lose," was the quiet answer.
"Well, I'd just like to try it. Pit him and his kind against our keen-witted,
sharp, aggressive young business men--men with business heads,
business experience"--Bonner's emphasis on the first syllable was
reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his chair--"and, and, by
gad! they'd be skinned alive--skinned out of their last cent, sir."
"That," said the colonel, dryly, "is not improbable. They are trained as
soldiers, not as sharpers. But, all the same, in spite, if you please, of
their soldier training, I fancy most of these lads that quit us to-day, if
brought face to face with sudden emergency, responsibility, something
calling for courage, coolness, judgment--above all, for action--would
hold their own, and I'd back them even in competition with your
aggressive young friends in business life."
"Why, they're taught to deal only with soldiers--with machines--not
men," argued Bonner.
"Well, such as they have handled men not soldiers more than once, in
your own city, Bonner, and to your vast benefit. They'll come to it
again some day. As for that young man, I picked him a year ago from
his whole class for the place that calls for the most judgment, tact, quiet
force, capacity to command--the 'first captaincy'--and never did I see it
better filled."
"Oh, granted as to that! But strip off the uniform, sword, and authority;
set him among the men we have to deal with--what could he do with a

railway strike? How could he handle maddened mill operatives,
laborers, switchmen, miners? Think of that, Hazzard! That isn't fighting
Indians, with a regiment at your back. You mark what I say!"
"Well, mobs, miners, or Indians, our young officers have had to meet
all kinds at times," said the colonel; "and if ever Graham is up against
them, Bonner, I'm thinking you'll hear of it."
And, oddly enough, before he was one month older, sitting in his office
in Chicago, Bonner was hearing it with a vengeance. There was the
mischief to pay in at least one of his mines. Oddly enough, before he
was one year older, George Montrose Graham, graduated cadet, was
"up against them," all three--mobs, miners, and Indians. How he met
them and how he merited the colonel's confidence let them judge who
read.
CHAPTER I
FROM THE GRAY TO THE BLUE
It was just after sunset of one of the longest days of the loveliest of our
summer months. The roar of the evening gun had gone re-echoing
through the Highlands of the Hudson. The great garrison flag was still
slowly fluttering earthward, veiled partially from the view of the throng
of spectators by the snowy cloud of sulphur smoke drifting lazily away
upon the wing of the breeze. Afar over beyond the barren level of the
cavalry plain the gilded hands of the tower-clock on "the old
Academic" were blended into one in proclaiming to all whom it might
concern that it was five minutes past the half-hour 'twixt seven and
eight, and there were girls in every group, and many a young fellow in
the rigid line of gray and white before them, resentful of the fact that
dress parade was wofully late and long, with tattoo and taps only two
hours or so away. The season for the regular summer "hops" had not
yet begun, for this was away back in the eighties, when many another
old West Point fashion still prevailed; but there was to be an informal
dance in the dining-room of the hotel, and it couldn't come off until
after supper, and supper had to be served to some people who were

"pokey" enough to care to come by late boat, or later train, and were
more eager to see the cadets on parade than to seek Mine Host Craney's
once bountiful table.
What made it more exasperating was that rumors were afloat to the
effect that the adjutant had long and important orders to publish, and
this would still further prolong the parade. Cadet Private Frazier, First
Class, one of the best dancers in the battalion, was heard to mutter to
his next-door neighbor in the front rank of the color company: "It'll be
nine o'clock before we get things going at the hotel, and we've got to
quit at nine-thirty. Confound the orders!" And yet, peering from under
the visor of his shako, Mr. Frazier could see without disturbing the
requisite pose of his head, "up and straight to the front, chin drawn in,"
that over near the south end of the row of gayly attired visitors, seated
or standing at the edge of the camp parade-ground, there was one group,
at least, to whom, as Frazier knew, the orders meant much more than
the dance.